Bristol Pound: How to use it

In shops which have signed up to the scheme you can use the £B1, £B5, £B10 or £B20 notes to buy goods or produce.

As the notes are equivalent to sterling, they are interchangeable with ordinary money. But if an item costs, for example, £2.47, then your change would be in normal coins. If you paid in sterling, you could ask for any notes in your change to be given in the new currency.

Those who open an account with the Bristol Credit Union can pay by using mobile phone or internet. You simply send a text to Bristol Pound to make a payment by using your PIN number, the business username and the amount to be paid.

A reply will be sent within five-10 seconds to you and the trader to say the transaction is complete. If there is a problem with the payment – such as not enough money in your account – you receive an error message.

The electronic accounts will be managed by the credit union which uses secure banking software. The notes are printed on watermarked paper by specialist printers and incorporate a number of security features.

The new currency can be exchanged for sterling but there is a five per cent exchange fee.

Opening an account just requires the filling out of a form which can be done online. You can pay into your account by standing order, standard bank transfer or direct from your employer. There is no joining fee or on-going membership fee.

The scheme is not intended to make any profit as it is being run as a co-operative but if any profits are made, members will decide how they are spent.

Payments made by text will incur a fee of 2.75 per cent and payments online, one per cent.

The scheme is voluntary and the currency is not legal tender although is equivalent to sterling.

Comments

Sorry, but in this time of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer, it is ludicrous to issue these tokens in order to benefit the local traders in Bristol.
The normal people of Bristol can no longer afford to subsidise local traders, however much they would like to avoid using multinational chains.
You can not expect people to pay inflated prices just to keep local businessmen rich, I'm afraid they will just get a proper job, or live on their savings.

@BrizzTony
Dunno about bookies but pubs accepting the Bristol Pound include The Three Tuns in Hotwells, The Vittoria in Whiteladies Rd, The Windmill in Bedminster, The Tobacco Factory in Southville (OK not a pub as such but it's got a bar), The Red Lion in Whitehall, The Pipe & Slippers in Cheltenham Rd, The Lazy Dog in Ashley Down Rd, The Hillgrove Porter Stores in Kingsdown, The Full Moon in Stokes Croft, The Bag o' Nails in Hotwells, The Rummer in St Nick's Market...

Rubbish idea and as for not being tied to a small choice of outlets you'll be tied to which ever retailer takes this mickey mouse money and there won't be that many. I bet they're easy to knock up with Letraset and are short on security features. I notice that neither article in today's BEP mentions any retailer willing to accept this currency so my guess is it's niche retailers like The Better Food Company or places patronised by the dreaded PRSC mob. Why would I go to the trouble of opening another account with Credit Union just for this? I wouldn't.

By the way, if you go to our new website (the link probably won't work but just google bristolpound.org) you can see the BETA version of our online directory, with some of the participating businesses already mapped! At the moment we have around 230 that have said they will join the scheme.

Hi all, some of the figures in this piece are incorrect and we have spoken to the Post about this.
The initial offer is 5% bonus from within the first £100,000 sterling paid into Bristol Pounds. That means that £20 gets you £B21, so you DO get a bit more Bristol Pounds for your money.
In addition, some of the participating businesses will be offering special offers for Bristol Pound users.
Furthermore, its important to emphasise that this is a COMPLIMENTARY currency. We do not advise that you put all of your sterling into Bristol Pounds. At most, we will be recommending a monthly payment into Bristol Pounds, such as £20/£50 a month - whatever suits you!
Its easy to use Bristol Pounds alongside sterling too, so in practice it will work as a good reason to draw you into local independent businesses. Hope that helps. Apologies for any misunderstandings.